


Drabble

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic!Rose, F/F, Gen, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You knit in a room with Vriska and Kanaya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drabble

**Author's Note:**

> tw: for nongraphic violence
> 
> I suppose this takes place in a canon bubble where things are simultaneously the same and different and where time and plot have no meaning whatsoever. Basically the purpose of this was to explore an aromantic!Rose in a room with Kanaya and Vriska, the former of whom is possibly nursing red feelings for Rose (possibly confusing ones for Vriska) and Vriska who is feeling more on the black!rom side of things.
> 
> This drabble is basically a vehicle for me to testdrive writing fic for the fandom (characterization, quadrant feelings, etc.) and gingerly play with them to discover further complexity, depth, and nuance.
> 
> I'm not very good at it yet.

You knit beside the fire, tea steeping and cooling on the floor beside your curled legs. The click of the needles tap dance and flash in the orange-ribboned shadows while Kanaya performs routine maintenance on her chainsaw and Vriska, sans socks, paints her red converse in a fashion that is evokative of her ancestor.

You wonder, perhaps, if Vriska is still, after all this time, trying to catch up with her.

You have already reconciled yourself to the fact that you never will with yours.

Knitted lengths of material fall to the ground, folded over and upon itself in a lopsided tower of yarn. It is much too long for a suitable scarf.

It is much too long for anything of utility.

This fact does not perturb or trouble you. You will knit until the skein is finished upon which you will replace it with another.

Perhaps a shade of purple to compliment the charcoal coloring of this particular dye.

You mention this aloud to Kanaya because she had expressed interest regarding your knitting endeavors.

“It would complement your eyes,” she says, in that way where each word is punctuated clearly and carefully, so that no one will misunderstand. Say what she means, means what she says.

Vriska scoffs and you shrug.

“A seer shouldn’t have eyes,” Vriska says. She looks up from her shoes, fingertips coated in paint, eyepatch a dark grey while her other eye grows lamplight-round and bright, blue pupils dilating into a wide and endless tunnel. “I’m sure we could help with that.”

Perhaps you should be afraid, but you are a rose, and every rose has its thorns.

“Vriska,” Kanaya says.

You drop a stich and you pick it up again.

“My sister is a seer, too,” Vriska says. “But I led her into the woods and through the sunlight.” She reaches for you then, her teeth clicking against each other. “Flowers like the sun, don’t they?”

You are tired of this ill concealed threat—though, considering its source, it is probably not supposed to be a threat of a subtextual nature. You find it difficult to care beyond the fact that you would rather be knitting while drinking your tea undisturbed with whatever this is.

Kanaya glimmers in the dim light (hearth fires, despite their romanticized nature, are hardly the equivalent of devices powered by electricity), the wound still gaping in her stomach. She told you once how she had once imagined you as a troll like herself. You still find the mental image amusing.

You still don’t know why she told you.

But you are frustrated that they are here, that Vriska is trying to goad you, that Kanaya watches you while she slicks her chainsaw with oil. You wonder if she still imagines you as the Troll Rose of her fantasies when you know that you are nothing like.

You decide to try to speak their language, so you put aside your knitting, needles crossed and ready if necessary at the top of the pile of yarn. You loom over Vriska. “Get up,” you say.

Vriska pauses, her one eye mocking you, so you haul her up by her shoulder, her bare feet burning across the carpet, push her against the wall. You don’t know if troll anatomy lends sensitive nerve endings in the hollow of her shoulder, but you press your thumb down there hard anyway. “Stop your insinuations.”

“I hope you’ll always be blind,” she says, a long thin tongue flicking out, licking her lips. You notice a sheen of sweat dab her forehead, almost unnoticeable on her grey skin.

“I see enough,” you say, digging your thumb in harder. She doesn’t whimper, but her eyes broaden and she spreads her bare feet for leverage, toes curling into the carpet shag, as she pushes against you. Then her eyes flick over your shoulders and she says, “Stay out of this, Miss Fussy Fangs.”

But Kanaya must ignore her because you feel her presence behind you, the way she puts her hand on your shoulder.

“Your assumptions are pretentious and unfounded,” she says, dipping her head into the cradle of her shoulder, her breath hot and damp against your skin.

Her presence causes your attention to waver, your neck to flush with what you recognize as sudden and unexpected arousal, and Vriska—who despite the loss of her eye is hardly blind—takes advantage of this moment by punching you in the face.

You stagger back against Kanaya, who is not entirely warm—but solid behind you.

The general principle is newtonian, but she has initiated a strife, so you aggrieve with your fists. When you finish, Vriska is sprawled on the ground, wiping blue blood from her mouth and nose. There is a splatter of blood on her shirt—but it’s red, and you realize, after tasting iron, that it is from your own split lip and knuckles. 

Vriska is almost gleeful. “You must hate me,” she says. “For John and for going to be the one to defeat Noir and—”

You don’t have the time or the inclination to listen. You say, “I suppose I would if I gave any thought regarding you at all.”

Vriska appears to be rendered momentarily speechless, and you are suddenly unsure if the strife is continuing, but you cannot fathom what it is that you have done that would cause Kanaya to slide coldly away from you, without looking at you the way she often does, to cause her to kneel beside Vriska even though she pulls away.

You wipe your hand across your shirt and resume knitting once more.  


End file.
